"Soil" was intended as a stylistic take on the artstyle "Art Nouveau" or "Jugendstil" of the 1920´s. A horror story that is chilling, but also beautiful to look at. It was also the first comic to be drawn for Schattenspiele 2012. The Comic, unfortunately, fell flat on different levels, in my opinion:

First, I should have looked at Art Nouveau and it´s stylistic elements more closely before starting to draw, as the similarities start out at zero percent and reach maye 10% at best on the latter pages.

Second: I should have added text, since the pictures alone can´t carry it on it´s own, at least not the way I portrayed it, it´s too abstract.

Basically, what´s up is this: The white cherry trees shown start bleeding when rain falls unto them and said blood sips through the skin of creatures that rest below it, infecting them. The woman stands up, but falls down quickly and seemingly dies, when in reality, she turns into a tree herself. Years later a couple shows up and picks some cherries, only for the woman to realize, that they taste like blood and the man to cut one up to see the silhouette of a baby instead of a pit inside.

The story is not designed to make sense on a narrative level, it´s more a contemplation on the merging of two pictures: The tree and the woman. Blood streams that are twigs, (the third panel of page four is trying to emulate upside-down lungs growing out of her chest (GETIT?)), tree sap as blood and fruits as... well... embryoes.